Summary
Medication errors are a leading cause of patient harm globally. WHO launched the Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm, with the objective of preventing severe medication related patient harm globally.
This publication is one of the documents in the WHO Technical Series on “Medication Safety Solutions” that the WHO is publishing, to address important aspects pertaining to medication safety.
Content
Look-alike, sound-alike (LASA) medicines are a well-recognised cause of medication errors that are due to orthographic (look-alike) and phonetic (sound-alike) similarities between medicines, which can be confusing. Look-alike medicines appear visually the same with respect to packaging, shape, colour and/or size, while sound-alike medicines are similar in the phonetics of their names, doses and/or strengths. Confusions can occur between brand-brand, brand-generic or generic-generic names. Organisations need to prospectively design and implement strategies to identify LASA medication errors and build a robust system that intercepts them before they result in patient harm. In this publication, preventive strategies that can be implemented by healthcare professionals and organisations are presented.
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